Hasan Hirsi, who fled Somalia more than three years ago, told reporters he was tortured with electric shocks in Ukraine. “Hirsi’s hands trembled as he spoke of his ordeal in the detention center,” wrote Der Spiegel. For days the refugees were given nothing to eat. They were beaten repeatedly and tortured again and again with electroshocks. “I realized that the situation for me in Ukraine was terrible. I couldn’t stay,” said Hirsi. He was still a minor at the time.

But Hirsi’s escape to the European Union, in order to petition for asylum there, was blocked. Refugees in Ukraine were placed under police surveillance and arrested. If they did manage to cross the border into the EU countries Hungary or Slovakia, they were immediately deported back to Ukraine.

Refugee Ali Jaga, who also comes from Somalia, explained: “They captured me in Slovakia and then in the middle of the night simply took me back to Ukraine. They never once said that they were sending us back to Ukraine, which is the same as saying: We’re bringing you to a refugee camp. But then we saw the Ukrainian flag.”

Such actions, known as “pushbacks,” are serious violations of international law under the Geneva Conventions, which state that asylum applications must be heard and reviewed. The rejection of refugees at the border is a clear break with a central component of international refugee law. The Hungarian and Slovakian border guards, who have deported Hasan Hirsi and other refugees to Ukraine, are thereby carrying out illegal acts.

But the EU Commission pleads ignorance. With respect to the Report Mainz report, they declare that they are unaware of any “cases of specific or widespread pushbacks.” That is simply not credible.

As early as 2011, the refugee relief organizations Border Monitoring Project Ukraine (BMPU) and Pro Asylum, documented dozens of cases of refugees whose right of access to asylum procedures in Hungary and Slovakia were refused. Even minors were ruthlessly deported to Ukraine in a matter of hours.

The UN Refugee Agency of the United Nations (UNHCR) also acknowledges the illegal pushbacks. Ilja Todorovic of the UNHCR Bureau in Kiev told Report Mainz: “There are reports available to us about refugees, who for good reason do not want to remain in Ukraine, trying to make it to the EU. But on the EU side of the border they are stopped and sent back. One can say unlawfully sent back, because they are not allowed to submit an application for asylum in the EU.”

The European Union, which is sealing itself off from refugees ever more rigorously, actually finances the inhumane prison system for refugees in Ukraine. As part of the “European Neighborhood Policy,” the EU allocated €30 million to Ukraine between 2007 and 2010 for the establishment of detention centres for refugees. Last year, the EU called for the building of further prisons at the cost of an additional €20 million. From 2000 to 2006, the EU had already transferred €35 million for the building up of border security.

The funds are provided so that Ukraine can take over the dirty work of the EU regarding refugees. The country acts as a frontline deterrent to block the entry of refugees into the European Union. In addition to financial support, Ukraine receives in return visa privileges for its own citizens.

Human rights organizations indicate that severe violations of the rights of refugees have been going on for years in Ukraine. In 2010, Human Rights Watch reported on the abuse and torture of refugees by Ukrainian border guards. “They beat me in the head with a pistol. I lay on the floor, unconscious. They dragged me through the snow. They kicked me in the neck,” reported one refugee from Pakistan.

Other refugees described what it was like to be tortured with electric shocks: “They strapped me to a chair. They placed electrodes on my ears,” said a refugee from Afghanistan. A Somali complained that he was robbed by Ukrainian security forces who threatened to kill him.

Marc Speer, who works for the project “bordermonitoring.eu” in Ukraine, told Report Mainz: Whoever is caught here, attempting to flee, generally spends a year in a prison built with the help of the EU. That is the kind of punishment received for the irregular crossing of the border or even for an attempt at crossing it.”

In the year 2012, 80 Somali refugees carried out a weeks-long hunger strike due to inhumane conditions in the prisons. After several weeks, the hunger strike was ended by a special armed unit of the Ukrainian police. Refugees were physically abused and a number of them force fed.

Beyond the prisons, the circumstances facing refugees in Ukraine are catastrophic. Their daily food rations are worth less than €1. Medical treatment is unavailable and there is no chance of finding work. Almost all refugees report experiencing violence. The random detention of refugees is a daily occurrence.

The EU Commission turns a blind eye to the growing misery and distress of refugees. A request by the reporting team from Report Mainz received the terse reply: “The EU supports Ukraine so that it is able to manage irregular migration and the handling of asylum seekers according to the best European standards.”

It is scandalous that the European Union continues to recognize Ukraine as a stable third status country. In addition to its illegal pushback operation it deports refugees, whose asylum requests are rejected in line with an EU treaty of 2010.

Ilja Todorovic of the UNHCR in Kiev declared: “The EU uses neighbor states in the East, sends money and other things, only then to assert: Refugees in Ukraine have it good. We work here, however, and know: That’s not true. If one uses that as an excuse to slow the flow of refugees then that has nothing to do with human rights. The refugee problem is outsourced.”

The hypocrisy of the European Union is boundless. The last time the EU raised the human rights situation in Ukraine was the occasion of the European Soccer Championships of 2012, when the EU demanded the prompt release of the pro-Western oligarch and politician Yulia Tymoshenko. By contrast, they have nothing to say about the situation of refugees in Ukraine.

The human rights violations against refugees in Ukraine make a mockery of the claims by the EU that the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych has led to the creation of a democratic state. Günter Burkhardt, the managing director of Pro-Asylum, told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger: “It cannot be that the EU supports Ukraine in the current conflict while at the same time accepting human rights violations by Ukraine against defenseless refugees.”

The situation in Ukraine is not an isolated case. The European Union is using force to erect a buffer zone around the EU in order to keep out refugees as much as possible. Serious human rights violations are consciously accepted in an effort to deter refugees.

In an interview with the radio program Deutsche Welle, the director of the German office of Human Rights Watch summed up these cynical politics: “The EU has financed refugee camps for years in different non-member states. Even such undemocratic countries as Libya and Belarus have received funding, so that refugees can be prevented from entering the EU. That testifies to a definite callousness in Brussels.”

Human Rights Watch (HRC) continues to document such abuse. As part of its World Report last year, HRC claimed that ‘security forces continued to arrest scores of individuals arbitrarily in towns where anti-government protests regularly take place’ citing ‘reports of torture and ill-treatment in detention’ culminating, in some cases, in the deaths of detainees.

So why a new British naval base? Much has been made of British attempts to expand its influence in a region mired in conflict and, notably, the rise of ISIS. Naturally any state may have to undertake some degree of balance when it comes to strategic interest and its ethical sensibilities.

But do these always have to be at odds, or does this apparent ambivalence to human rights reflect something more sinister within British foreign policy?

Nicholas McGeehan, writing for HRW, takes a particularly dim view of the British Secretary for Commonwealth and Foreign Affairs, Phillip Hammond. Claiming that pro-Bahraini comments made by the Secretary are the ‘worst and most cynical yet’ McGeeham questions why the UK ‘which claims to have a global commitment to support human rights defenders’ remains apathetic about current abuses.

Indeed, Hammond, in a speech before the House of Commons last month, made the interesting claim that Bahrain ‘is a country travelling in the right direction’ in regards to human rights. McGeenham was quick to point out that, less than a day earlier, a Bahraini activist, Nabeel Rajab, had received a prison sentence for making a post on Twitter that allegedly ‘insulted state institutions’.

Hammond’s statement that ‘we (Britain) continually remind the Bahrainis of their commitment’ to human rights is thus rather peculiar.

Rajab is not just any activist. As President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Rajab also served as an advisor to HRW’s Middle Eastern Division.

His prosecution for the audacious tweet claiming that Bahraini citizens who have joined ISIS may have come from ‘security institutions’ native to the country, whilst controversial, is easily interpreted as a broader attack on freedom of expression.

There are more material concerns at work here. Rajab had strong views on the UK’s relationship with his country, even going as far as to claim that the proposed naval base reflects growing economic and political ties between the two nations.

There are certain legal issues though with pursuing such a policy with a nation holding such an evidently dim view of human rights.

The UK is bound by European Union law on arms export policy, notably the 1998 Code of Conduct and the subsequent 2008 Common Position, stipulating that any EU state must take into account the human rights record of foreign nations purchasing weapons.

In prose that hardly leaves room for doubt, the 2008 Common position thus requires EU members to ‘prevent the export of military technology and equipment which might be used for internal repression’. Respect for ‘human rights in the country of final destination’ is also clearly stated.

The truth is, this may be yet another instance of political expediency taking precedence over all else.

Daniel Read is a freelance journalist and editor operating out of the UK. In the past he has specialised in political and trade union issues, and has appeared in such publications as Transitions (in the Czech Republic) and Z Magazine (in the US).

Nabeel Rajab is a human rights activist awaiting trial in Bahrain, one of the West’s favorite dictatorships. Three years after the Arab Spring, protests there are still being violently repressed, and Rajab now faces up to three years in jail — for a tweet. VICE News spoke to him a few weeks before his latest arrest.

Reports surfaced on Wednesday that Jawad was going to be released, according to his lawyer Reem Khalaf. But at the time of publication, Jawad has yet to be returned home to his family.

This wouldn’t be the first time the island kingdom abducted and tortured a political dissident. Loved by the West for, among other things, hosting the U.S. Fifth Fleet and its hostility toward Iran, Bahrain has been violently repressing peaceful protests and political opposition while implementing only piecemeal reforms recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, according to a report in Al-Monitor. Feb. 14 marked the fourth anniversary of Bahrain’s failed uprising and was predictably marked by violent clashes between security forces and protesters who have become disillusioned by the limits of peaceful political expression.

Jawad’s wife, Asma Darwish, is the head of information and media relations for the EBOHR and immediately took to Twitter on Monday to report the kidnapping of her husband, and numerous human rights activists followed suit. The Irish human rights organization Front Line Defenders said “masked men in civilian clothes” kidnapped Jawad and held him incommunicado for 10 hours before he was finally allowed to speak by phone to his wife.

According to Darwish’s tweets about her conversation with her husband, he may have been tortured already.

“To have masked men raid your house at dawn is scary, specifically when holding your 2-year-old son between your arms,” Darwish told me over Skype. “I am worried a lot. When Hussain called, that one only call … I heard noises and strange sounds. He hardly spoke. He left me there, broken beyond repair — yet feeling more empowered to fight back to bring my husband home.”

When armed masked men of ISIL kidnap and torture their prisoners, the U.S. and U.K. lead the charge in denouncing these actions in the strongest terms. But when their favorite Arab dictatorships, with which they have all kinds of cozy arrangements and mutual geopolitical interests, employ similar violent and brutal tactics to suppress political freedoms, the West looks the other way while entrenching its vested military and political objectives.

In a recent column at Middle East Eye, author Hussain Abdulla writes that “Western countries appear to be employing the ‘stability over democracy’ approach in the Gulf,” as combating ISIL is seen as a bigger priority.

The U.S. valued parking its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain long before the rise of ISIL. But as Abdulla points out, by shoring up support for Bahrain and other allied Arab dictatorships in the name of combating ISIL, the U.S. is all but guaranteeing the rise of future violent extremist groups in Bahrain by allowing the regime to continue committing its brazen human rights abuses.

As if eager to vindicate his claims, the regime determined that the best course of action would be to follow ISIL’s lead: lock him up in a cage for the high crime of blaspheming the state.

Jawad was previously detained multiple times by the authorities and is already facing charges of insulting the king, according to a report in Middle East Eye. It remains to be seen if new charges will be brought in connection with his latest detention. His case, however upsetting, is unfortunately just one in a long line of victims who had the temerity to challenge and question the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Bahrain. Meanwhile, Bahrainis can rest assured that wherever there are masked gunmen throwing innocents into the back of a vehicle, the U.S. will not stand idly by, so long as it’s the right kind of villain behind the mask.

Joseph Sabroski is a freelance journalist who writes about U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America’s editorial policy.

The court ruled last July that Poland violated the rights of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah by allowing the CIA to imprison them and by failing to stop “the torture and inhuman or degrading treatment” they suffered.

Mr Nashiri and Mr Zubaydah are still held in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp and Mr Schetyna queried whether the compensation could be paid to them directly.

On Tuesday, the Guardianrevealed the existence of a secret interrogation facility operated by the Chicago Police Department, in what the newspaper called “the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site”: here.

And let’s be in no doubt but that Bahrain is a most oppressive regime, ranking 163rd out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index (Ireland ranks 16th), as a consequence of which it is off-limits to most human rights groups. In this small island about one million people are governed by a minority Sunni monarchy, which, with the economic backing of Saudi Arabia, oppresses the Shia majority who are denied the most basic of human rights.

Let us remind ourselves that what started as a peaceful protest for basic human rights in the Arab Spring of 2011 ended with more than 35 people killed and some 70 medical professionals, including 47 doctors, being arrested, with more than 150 medical workers suspended or dismissed from their jobs, and that Irish-trained surgeons and doctors Ali Al-Ekri, Bassim Dhaif, Ghassan Dhaif and his wife Zahraa Al-Sammak were among the tortured. Dr Al-Ekri remains incarcerated in a prison.

Freedom of speech

The question is this: can university education be provided in an environment that forbids freedom of speech and imprisons those who chose to exercise this fundamental democratic right? The President of the Irish Medical Council, Prof Freddie Wood, who until recently was a member of the Council of RCSI and Chairman of its Finance Committee, is, I would argue, of the opinion that freedom of expression is a prerequisite of medical education.

In a recent lecture, Prof Wood used a quote from Martin Luther King: “Our lives begin to end the day we start to remain silent about the things that matter.” The President went on to illustrate the righteous adherence of the IMC to such a principle: “All the international research shows that doctors who have issues at medical school are likely to continue with bad practices throughout their professional lives. If we can work to standardise the training experience for all doctors so that it is consistently high, we can make sure a reference for good practice is there throughout a doctor’s career.” Likewise, the National University of Ireland (NUI) (which awards degrees in Bahrain) is emphatic in emphasising the importance of freedom of speech in university education.

Dr Maurice Manning, the Chancellor of NUI, chaired a committee in 2013 that drafted a guiding document entitled Human Rights Principles and Code of Conduct for the National University of Ireland and its Member Institutions.

It should be noted that the RCSI, as a member institute, should be subject to the principles enumerated in this document, among which are: “The National University of Ireland and its member institutions have a special responsibility to ensure that… the human rights of their students, staff and associates are fully respected, regardless of the country where they are located. This includes but is not limited to freedoms that are necessary for the good functioning of a university, such as freedom of association, freedom of expression, and freedom from discrimination.”

It goes on to emphasise that the NUI and its member institutions must ensure that none of their activities, including partnerships they undertake with institutions in different countries, are seen as providing support for the violation of human rights.

How, one has to ask, can these Irish institutions on the one hand emphasis such laudable principles about the educational environment of medical students, and, on the other, countenance granting accreditation to RCSI-Bahrain and its associated hospitals, where torture and imprisonment of medical staff, not to say anything about suppression of freedom of speech, has been openly documented and repeatedly emphasised by medical and legal authorities?

Educators in Bahrain have also had difficulty reconciling the principles of education with the repression of basic human rights. The former President of RCSI-Bahrain, Prof Tom Collins, resigned his position because by remaining in office effectively amounted to complicity with suppressive policies of the Bahraini authorities — a resultant compromising of the very essence of higher education.

The ‘rape’ of Bahrain

Dr Mike Diboll, a former Academic Head of Continuing Professional Development at Bahrain Teachers College, University of Bahrain, and a faculty member of the University of Bahrain, who “witnessed the toxic effects of institutionalised sectarianism, the suppression of academic freedom and the violation of civil and human rights at the University of Bahrain”, has stated that: “The rape of Bahrain Polytechnic provides yet more evidence — as if more were needed — as to why no respectable international higher education institution, professional body, or accreditation agency should have anything whatsoever to do with Bahrain until fundamental social and political change has happened there.”

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the recent announcement by the Medical Council to grant accreditation to RCSI-Bahrain has appalled many doctors, who see grave implications that extend far beyond the shores of the islands of Bahrain and Ireland.

IMC Report

The IMC Report on Accreditation Inspection of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Bahrain Medical School, which took place on October 13 and 14, 2014, makes, in my view, disturbing reading, not so much for the recommendations it makes, but for the facts it chooses to omit in reaching its conclusions. I am not going to concern myself with the make-up of the visiting team, but rather concentrate on their failure to make any meaningful reference to human rights and the freedom of expression — issues that cannot be ignored in the context of approving a third-level institution that purports to educate doctors to practise in multicultural environments.

The only mention of human rights in the 40-page document (apart from four documents listed as ‘Background Reading’) is reference to a review document from RCSI-Bahrain that apparently “commits RCSI-B to expressing its declared ethos, including commitment to dignity and freedom for all, though the content and process of its teaching”.

The report goes on: “A stand-alone module on human rights has been introduced, with assessment explicitly linked to student progress.”

It could be argued that the report reflects an unsuitable position taken towards the institute under inspection, rather than expressing its findings in a dispassionate and factual manner. For example, from the outset the “noble purpose” of RCSI is acknowledged, whereby it enhances “human health through endeavour, innovation and collaboration in education, research and service”.

The report repeatedly “commends” RCSI-Bahrain, examples being for the sports facilities available on campus and on the range of clubs and societies available to students, the “Careers Office, which provides guidance, support and advice” and the “calibre of the administrative staff met on the accreditation inspection”.

These are important considerations in any university where fundamental existential conditions, such as academic freedom, meritocratic decision-making, freedom of association and freedom of expression are assumed, which is not necessarily the case in Bahrain.

The report deems the clinical facilities to be acceptable, not by a rigorous assessment of the hospitals, interviewing past pupils, patients and independent reports, but instead by relying on the ability of current students to speak out and exercise their freedom of speech, which has hitherto been so assiduously denied them.

There is then the time given to the IMC visit — two working days to visit and interview personnel at the RCSI-Bahrain Medical School, the King Hamad University Hospital, and the Bahrain Defence Forces Hospital, and to assess the clinical facilities.

The report suggests an important contradiction, which needs to be reconciled, namely that while it was disappointing that the Team had been unable “to meet with a greater number of students, they found that students were aware of the purpose of the meeting and had reasonable opportunity to opt-in”. Why did so few students attend, then, if they were aware of the meeting?

The final conclusion of this flawed report is that: “The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Bahrain’s six-year Medical Programme should be approved for a period of five years under the terms of Section 88(2)(a)(i)(I) of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007.”

This recommendation is based on the fact that RCSI-Bahrain provided “an appropriate, comprehensive and pedagogically-sound education programme, which is carefully designed to meet defined educational outcomes and is based on the well established programme at the parent institution in Dublin”.

Does this imply that the visiting team from Ireland believed that the same democratic principles that pertain in Dublin also operate in the educational environment in Bahrain?

This is not too surprising, of course, seeing that it would appear they did not interview or visit any of the people involved in upholding human rights in that country.

Rather, the IMC team has chosen to concentrate on issues of technical competence rather than the relevance of ethical principles in decision making — a dangerous course as the Irish people well know, having had to pay for this dichotomy in the failure of banking regulation in this country.

Human rights

So what is the state of human rights in Bahrain today? Two examples will suffice. First, the IMC visit took place just after the women’s rights activist Ghada Jamsheer had been arrested and detained for tweeting criticism of the IMC-approved King Hamad University Hospital; she is now considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

Second, my friend Nabeel Rajab, who is the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, a founder of the Gulf Center for Human Rights and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East division’s advisory committee, is presently facing six months in prison — a sentence he is appealing — for issuing a tweet that offended the Bahraini authorities, which has warned that anyone who “offends by any method of expression the National Assembly or other constitutional institutions, the army, law courts, authorities or government agencies” will be sentenced to jail.

Allow me to speculate. Were the IMC delegation, who were selected for proven abilities and experience, aware of all this background, did they choose to ignore it, were they denied enquiry into the educational environment, did they in fact probe the issue, or did they see it as outside their remit — or none of the above? Only the IMC can say which, if any, of these explanations is correct.

Whatever the answer, as things stand at present, the IMC and the Minister of Education and Skills have done nothing to address the abuse of human rights in Bahrain, and have allowed it to continue by sanctioning an Irish educational institution in that island.

Perhaps, more importantly, they may be jeopardising the reputation of Irish higher education both at home and abroad in terms of its pursuit for and profession of truth.

Ireland has a proud tradition internationally in medicine by virtue of medical missionary work, its contributions to scientific medicine and the reputation for clinical excellence acquired over many years by dedicated doctors and nurses working at home and abroad.

The Minister has a responsibility not to see this reputation squandered. She has a further responsibility, which is that she must be assured that the IMC is acting in accord with the requirements of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), which the IMC is mandated to support. These standards stress that the locations for clinical tuition should be safe, and that academic freedom must be upheld so that there is “appropriate freedom of expression [and] freedom of inquiry” for both staff and students.

If the Minister upholds the decision of the IMC, which I believe conflicts with human rights standards in Ireland, then this issue may well be open to challenge.

While we in the US ate chocolates and celebrated love, Bahrain commemorated another occasion. This year, Feb. 14 marks the fourth anniversary of the most recent revolution. Unfortunately, the repression continues, and this Valentine’s Day is marked by more forceful responses to continuing protests, complete with tear gas, sound bombs and police violence against demonstrators: here.

According to the Associated Press, defendant Ramzi Binalshibh told the presiding judge that the interpreter seated next to him was someone that he and other defendants recognized from their earlier incarceration at secret CIA prisons before their transfer to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Defense attorney Cheryl Bormann of Chicago represents Walid bin Attash, another 9/11 defendant who was present at the hearing Monday. She told the AP that Attash was “visibly shaken” to see an individual who “participated in his illegal torture” in the courtroom today.

“If this is part of the pattern of infiltration by government agencies into the defense teams, then the right people to be addressing this issue are not in the courtroom,” Bormann added.

Four out of the five defendants at Monday’s hearing said that they were certain that the interpreter in question was present at the CIA detention site where they were held. Their lawyers suggested to the judge that the former CIA asset’s placement on the defense team was no accident, and they requested time to further investigate this.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon responded to the previous day’s revelations with an admission that the interpreter in question had in fact worked for the CIA.

“The member of the defense team referenced in previous hearings has in the past made readily available to prospective supervisors his prior work experience with the United States government, including with the CIA,” Pentagon spokesman Myles Caggins stated.

“The prosecution does not have any role in providing linguists to defense teams in military commission,” he added.

Defense attorney Bormann contradicted this claim in a statement to the AP, saying that the interpreters are part of a pool of linguists provided to the defense teams, and their resumes and backgrounds cannot be studied in detail.

“Now the question is what other infiltration has occurred and to what extent has it destroyed our ability to represent these men,” she said.

Further undermining Caggins’ claim was the statement by Jim Harrington, attorney for defendant Binalshibh, that the interpreter lied on his resume. Harrington told the Miami Herald on Tuesday evening that his team asked the interpreter whether he had “participated in any interrogation, questioning or done any work with respect to detainees. Any place. His resume denies it. It says he worked someplace else—Reston, Virginia, from 2002 to 2006.”

“We vetted him. He denied it,” Harrington said.

The fact that a CIA operative has found his way onto the defense team representing his former victims speaks volumes about the military commission process. Taken in context, the presence of a CIA spy on the defense team fits the show trial character of the proceedings as a whole, which have been discredited time and again by interference with the defendants’ right to counsel.

From the outset, the military tribunals against the 9/11 defendants were designed with two goals: first, to railroad the defendants into conviction by any means, including confessions extracted by torture; and second, to protect the gory details of US imperialist involvement with the Islamic fundamentalist terror groups that it arms and funds one day, and denounces, persecutes and destroys the next, depending on the foreign and domestic policy needs of the American ruling class at any given time.

Thus, the alleged conspirators in the terror attacks of 9/11—an event which has the hallmarks of US government involvement—were in many cases kidnapped from around the globe, held incommunicado and tortured, brought to Cuba for further torture and indefinite detention, and now face the death penalty in proceedings that make the secret court of Star Chamber seem equitable by comparison.

The commission is housed in a $12 million “Expeditionary Legal Complex,” where reporters sit behind soundproof glass, listening to the proceedings on a 40-second delay. A large red light bulb at the judge’s bench, seen in this video, illuminates when he or a security officer presses a button to mute the audio when the testimony may concern evidence of CIA torture or other “sensitive information.”

In January 2013, this muting device was activated without the judge’s say so, indicating that someone outside of the proceeding, and essentially above the law, can intervene and silence the audio feed at will. The Guardian later reported that this “outside” silencer was the CIA.

In February 2013, lawyers for the defendants complained of advanced surveillance devices in attorney-client meeting rooms hidden inside of phony smoke detectors. In April of that year, defense attorneys learned that some 500,000 internal emails had been seized by the Department of Defense.

After allowing for the filing of motions on Tuesday, Judge Pohl denied defense motions to halt the case until further inquiry regarding the interpreter on Wednesday, saying that this was “premature.”

The uncovering of a CIA spy on the defense team underscores the sham character of the military commissions for the accused 9/11 conspirators. The defendants are systematically denied their Sixth Amendment right to an attorney, which is meaningless when attorney-client meetings are the subjects of surveillance. No attorney, no matter how skilled, can successfully represent a client who is being intimidated from having honest, open communication with his counsel.

These most recent developments in the proceedings, coming after the release of the Senate Intelligence Report on CIA torture, also highlight the terminal crisis of American democracy as a whole. Those who are accused of terrorism are tortured, indefinitely detained, intimidated and denied the right to counsel, while US government officials who invade countries, fund terrorism, institutionalize torture, and shred constitutional rights do not face so much as an indictment.

A FORMER Guantanamo detainee who was resettled in Uruguay appeared in neighbouring Argentina on Thursday wearing a prison-style orange jumpsuit and asked the country to grant asylum to detainees still held at the US concentration camp: here.

Former Gitmo Prisoner David Hicks Seeks Damages for Torture as Military Court Overturns Conviction: here.

After protracted legal action by former Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks, a US Military Commission Review has unanimously upheld the 39-year-old Australian citizen’s appeal against his bogus “providing material support for terrorism” conviction. The decision is yet another demonstration that the US-led “war on terror” and its associated crimes are built on lies: here.

In an Arab world swept away by revolutions and wars, few states have remained intact. And at what cost? Bahrain has seen protests, arrests and crackdowns on the opposition. Does stability necessarily mean political oppression in the Middle East? Why is Bahrain’s trouble off international media’s radar? We talk to human rights activist Maryam Alkhawaja, daughter of Bahrain’s renowned dissident, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is now in jail.

Mr Rajab, who met the political leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September 2014, has been imprisoned several times following accusations of having publicly insulted the Bahraini authorities on social media and having participated in and encouraged unauthorised demonstrations. Following a visit to Europe to draw attention to the human rights situation in Bahrain, Mr Rajab returned to Bahrain on 1 October 2014. He was summoned for interrogation just a day after his return, accused of having insulted a public institution on social media. On 20 January, Mr Rajab was sentenced to six months in prison for his ‘crime’. The sentence has been appealed, and the appeal is due to be heard by the court on 11 February.

‘The sentence against Nabeel Rajab is another example of how difficult the situation is for human rights defenders in Bahrain. A large number of human rights activists have been imprisoned with extremely harsh sentences. Norway calls for Nabeel Rajab to be released as quickly as possible,’ said Mr Pedersen.

A Bahraini human rights activist stripped of his citizenship and rendered stateless, has told the House of Lords in Westminster that Bahrain is using the revocation of nationalities as a weapon against the opposition: here.